On a coffee cup a neighbor just gave to me:
"In the cookies of life, FRIENDS are the chocolate chips."

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Surgery is Over, Brother has Gone & it's Chilly Outside

I am so happy my brother was able to visit before the surgery - and the surgeon agreed to postpone the surgery so I could spend some time with him.

Pancho Villa State Park
Columbus NM

I met him in Deming and we drove down to Columbus to see the Poncho Villa Museum/State Park, then worked our way down to The Pink Store in Palomas to have the traditional margarita and

The famous Pink Store & Restaurant, Palomas Mexico

And to start with our margaritas. He had 4.

meal. We spent the night in Deming and then drove home stopping in Hatch to have lunch at Sparky's and get a really wonderful juicy green chile cheeseburger (sorry, no picture as was so hungry and didn't think about taking a picture).

Sparky's, in Hatch NM is a must stop.

Hillsboro NM, former county jail many moons ago.

On Friday, we went to Hillsboro, Kingston and Lake Valley. Had a delicious hot dog at The Cafe in Hillsboro. He likes old towns. That afternoon,

Lake Valley NM - a ghost town on BLM property.

we had time to go to the Geronimo Springs Museum in TorC and drive around town.

Saturday we went to see Fort Craig Historic Sight - he likes old forts too. Then to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, where I met Lynn of Winnie Views, as she is a volunteer there. We drove around the Refuge but as of that date there weren't very many birds there. From there we met my son at The Owl Bar and had their famous green chile cheeseburgers. The Owl Bar was the starter of the green chile cheeseburgers and we assume our dad ate there at a time or two back in the mid-40's when he was involved with the Manhattan Project and the Trinity Site. After leaving San Antonio, we headed back home and stopped off at the El Camino Real International Heritage Center.

Lynn, in her volunteer outfit at Bosque del Apache

El Camino Real International Heritage Cntr.

Sunday, we traveled up to Winston and Chloride and went over to Monticello on our way home. I had another green chile cheeseburger at The Bank Cafe in Chloride and got to visit Dona, owner of many buildings in Chloride along with her husband Don. There has been a lot of restoration on their part and other individuals developing restored summer homes there.

Brother checking over a working tractor in Chloride NM

Lunch at The Bank Cafe, Chloride NM

Monday, brother went up to Socorro and spent a couple of days with son and they toured the VLBA office where he works, the VLA (brother got to see the antennas move) and on up to Pie Town to have some famous Pie Town pie. Wednesday, my brother drove over to Carrizozo to hand over some very late 1800 newspapers to the county historian that were printed in White Oaks. After visiting with her he drove up to White Oaks and then came back to TorC, where I was getting ready for my surgery on Thursday.

Brother drove me down to the hospital in Las Cruces, where I was to be at 6:30 a.m. Son and Jim came down around 10 a.m. and at that time my brother needed to get on the road heading toward home in California. He was stopping to spend a couple of days with some friends in Arizona and like a lot of us older folks, we don't drive too many miles in a day before we get tired. So he needed to allow plenty of time for the drive home.

It had been 4 years since I had seen him and was really hard to say goodbye. But it was so good to see him and am glad he could work out a trip over to see his old sister.

My surgery went very well this time, the nuclear stuff went where it was suppose to go and the surgeon was able to do her thing. She removed 4 nodes and they were all clear of any cancer cells and she feels she was able to remove the small tumor with clean edges all the way around. She will know more in a week. I don't have much pain and move my arm area as much as possible without tearing the surgery area. No heavy lifting for 8 weeks, so glad I got a lot of stuff done before the surgery. I would rather have too much work done before surgery than not enough, especially going into fall and winter time.

Got my Christmas lights up and a lot of things done in the yard. My brother stayed in the trailer while he was here and I managed to get the tanks dumped while he was visiting son. I still need to clear out the water lines. Jim and I have a few more doctor appointments before my radiation starts in November and daughter's visit for Thanksgiving. Am looking forward to that visit.

PS I see some of the pictures are out of line, but I did get them captioned. Have a good day.

4 comments:

This is a wonderful post. I enjoyed every word and every picture. I clicked on each one. I love the color and interesting things you seem to be surrounded by in NM. I am so happy and so relieved that all went well with the surgery this time. And happy you got to spend time with your brother. Great post! Love, Me

Wow, you sure gave your brother the grand tour of central New Mexico! So glad to have been a stop on your jam-packed itinerary. I'm happy to hear that your surgery went well with no lymph node involvement! Major win! Now it's time to rest and relax a bit.